California Pearl Harbor Survivor Joe Feld Remembers Day of Infamy-- Part 3: The Aftermath

A Chief Boatswain detailed Feld and the others to recover bodies at the dock.  Feld remembers seeing six battleships lined up and burning.  The water seemed to be an inferno with flames shooting eight inches up from it.

"But, we had our job to do, so we retrieved them from the water, placed them on a blanket and brought them back to the mess hall.

"When you're twenty years old and start fishing bodies out of the harbor, you don't last very long.  It's a part of the war I can hardly talk about because these guys had tried to swim in burning water to get to shore.

"But, that is what we did.

"We stood next to burning ships with flames going maybe 100 feet high.  It was hot.  You're not equipped to take all that in."

--GreGen